Arave Family Reunion

Wow!  So much has happened since our last post.  We've been too busy to write about it all I guess.  But things aren't about to slow down any time soon.

The Arave Reunion was excellent.  

But it all started out (at least for our branch of the family) with a two hour delayed flight, and a missed connecting flight, resulting in a 20 hour layover.  This is how we felt about it:

 Ira: Zombie mode at 11:00 pm  

 Eliot: Fairly neutral.  He had the benefit of little to no biological clock to tell him when to sleep.

 Ant: A little suicidal...if you count death by cell phone. 

 Me: Building up some assertiveness to whip out at the Delta people. 

But, the blessing from it all was that we were in the Detroit Airport, about 20 minutes away from our old apartment.  Ant posted a call for help on FB and some of our awesome friends came to pick us up even though it was super late and they had just gotten back from Nauvoo!  The next morning we got to the ward pancake 4th of July breakfast and saw some of our friends we're really excited to live by again soon. 

Enter: The Arave Family Reuinion (Anthony's Mom's side for those you don't know)

 Tah Dah!  What a beautiful family!  We were (almost) all smiling in this photo despite Ira wailing, "I want the poopoo (purple) car!"  

 Goodmorning.

 Ira had bloody blisters from playing with these trucks non-stop.

 What a cute Grandma..I mean Grandpa in a Grandma hat. 

Activities included:

 crazy rope swinging.

Volleyball

 Canoeing

Rope Coursing

The missionaries at the Heber Valley Girl's camp were quoted as saying, "Sheesh, the way these kids act, you'd think they have a ropes course in their back yard!"

 

Sunset viewing

Awesome Arave themed game playing

Eliot holding and so, so much more.

What a blessing it is to be in a family with people we enjoy being around so much.  Sorry for the abrupt ending, but we have about 4 more posts to get to!  

To be continued...

End of June

I was about to write a post about the Arave reunion, when I realized that it had been weeks since our last post, so I'll try to let the pictures do most of the talking.  

Therapy Party.  Yes.  My favorite board game, Therapy came in the mail a few weeks ago.  So we made brain jello and Rorschach cookies and invited the Millards and Millers over.  We all had babies a few weeks apart, so it was fun to have a little baby reunion. 

Eliot's many faces of waking up...in the order they occurred.  

We just had his 3 month check up.  He's up to 15 lbs 1 oz.  Weight is now in the 75%tile and Height and Head Circumference in the 95th. He is a big cutie. 

We drove up to Massachusetts to see our friends John and Beth Bond get hitched.  It was a beautiful wedding.  John is a work friend from GE.

Speaking of GE, we almost know where we're heading.  sigh...  Seriously.  I think in a week we should know for sure.  Ant's had three official offers, and we're strongly leaning towards one. 

Update Part II

 Ira's playing with playdough right now, so here's a couple of more visual summaries of our life.

 Ira in his boat (diaper box)

 Ira playing on his drum (cottage cheese container and spatula)

That's right.  Most kids trash their toys, but in our house we toy our trash.

This is about my limit though.  The neighbor left out these plastic plant containers and Ira has turned it into his new favorite game, endlessly kicking them around.  Here he's saying, "Mom!  It's bucket time!!!"  But I'm at the kitchen table nursing Eliot.

Another instance where Ira looks horribly neglected.  I was having trouble nursing Eliot that day, finally got him going, and wasn't about to stop just because Ira's pants fell down.  I just kept yelling, "Pull up your pants, dude!"  But he just kept trying to blow bubbles with his giant wand.  

Sorry these pics aren't the best quality.  Anthony and I went down to Pennsylvania to visit Mom and Dad, and hit the outlets.  It was really good to see some old friends again, Ira got some good grandparent time in, and Anthony and I got a load of cheap clothes. 

This is my friend Leah, who I met in Pittsburgh, lives in New York, and just happened to be in Reading the same day.  Our paths keep crossing at the most random of times, happily of course. :)

My friend Nichole and her beautiful family!  I think Ira has a little crush on Emma, and I'm tempted to arrange a marriage between the two.  

The job search is still progressing.  By next update, we just may know where we are going!  Anthony's been a champ through the process.  I can't imagine how stressful it could be trying to decide which opportunity to take advantage of.  

Alright, playdough boy beckons.  Love you guys!  

Flag and Father's Day

Things are going well here in the Quinn home.  Currently Eliot is napping, and Ira is pretending to nap, but playing with his trains.  I've gotten enough sleep the past two nights, that I don't feel like I need to collapse into my own bed for a mom-nap.  Woohoo!  This could be a new era of productivity.... Or, Eliot could go back to waking up 3 times a night.  Let's hope for the first.  

Here, Ira and Eliot are twins thanks to fun clothes that Camille sent.  You can tell that Ira still absolutely adores Eliot.  Yes, sometimes with an aggressive flare.  I guess it's that aggressive, two year old kind of love.  

 Ira killing some time before church.

For flag day, we talked about the American flag, and then did our best to dress up like it.  Ira found that the stars suited Eliot better. 

 Eliot's still super smiley.  He's in that cute no neck, no shoulders, head goes straight into his stomach phase.

 The Quinn flag: Designed by Ira, created by mom. 

The guys had a little food fest during Priesthood on Father's Day, so I made these in honor of Anthony.  Didn't quite get the collar's right, but oh well.  

I'm grateful for all the great dads in my life: my Dad, Anthony, Paul, my grandfathers, brother-in-laws...the random guy at the park who steps in when it looks like Ira is going to topple of the edge of a ladder...  It's a tough job that requires a lot of sacrifice and love.  Thanks guys!

Alright, Ira is no longer pretending to take a nap.  Gotta go.